Archaeology in Albania after Kosovo

In these years there was a sense of romantic purpose to the activities of the Institute. As many as fifty excavation campaigns were mounted in any one year, and Hoxhe himself took a personal interest in the archaeological discoveries. When Nikita Khruschev pressed Hoxhe to create a submarine base in Lake Butrint involving the destruction of the fine Greek, Roman and Byzantine ruins there, he haughtily refused, condemning the Soviet leader’s ignorance of history.
 
These active years came to an abrupt halt with the overthrow of the Communist government in 1990 and the adoption of democracy in 1991. Since then the Institute of Archaeology has suffered from a lack of funds and government support. Many of its most promising pupils have emigrated, leaving less than a third of the staff in place. Its museum is in need of refurbishment; its journal, Illiria, has been issued only intermittently; and the only funds for excavations are those provided by the small number of foreign missions now working in Albania. At the same time, the post-Communist decade has given rise to development, both unplanned and planned, on a hitherto unimaginable scale, often causing the transparent destruction of Albania’s remarkable archaeological record from Palaeolithic to Byzantine times.
 
An unlikely outcome of the Kosovo crisis was the interest taken in Albania by Dr David Packard, founder of the newly established Packard Humanities Institute. Packard, having taught ancient Greek at several universities, is very familiar with the geography of the ancient world. Durres, ancient Epidaumos and the modern gateway for much of the aid destined for Kosovo, is Albania’s second city. It boasts an impressive amphitheatre, now surrounded by illegal building which has sprung up since 1990. It is one of a number of great Greek and Roman cities in Albania that caught Packard’s imagination.
 
Reacting to the post-Kosovo need to develop cultural initiatives, and building on the international standing of Albania’s energetic minister of culture, Edi Rama, Packard has provided almost $2 million towards revitalising archaeology in the country. The funds have been directed towards three projects.
 
First, a new foundation will be created in Tirana working with the Institute of Archaeology. This will house a research library modelled on the archaeological libraries in the foreign institutes in Athens and Rome. It is hoped the foundation will facilitate interaction between Albanian archaeologists and those working in the country from universities such as Bologna, Cincinatti, East Anglia, Grenoble and Paris-Nanterre.
 
Second, the foundation is creating a modern rescue archaeology unit to work with the Institute of Archaeology. The aim is to encourage developers to fund future projects as they are required to meet international standards of protecting and recording the cultural heritage. Projects such as the modernisation of Durres harbour (once one of the great ports of the ancient world) and the Via Egnatia (the Roman road which linked Rome to Constantinople) are certain to bring to light numerous new discoveries. With this in mind, the unit’s director, Lorenc Bejko, is gauging how best to use the hi-tech practice developed by Britain’s field units, with a view to developing a new research strategy for Albanian archaeology.
 
The third part of the Packard project involves providing support for the teaching of archaeology in Tirana University. The research missions and rescue unit will need personnel trained in modern theory and computer-led practice. The rector of Tirana University has been very sympathetic, lending his support to a new course for students of archaeology. As of next year, the dozen second-year archaeology students will spend their second semester on the research excavations at Butrint, the World Heritage Site on the Straits of Corfu. There, in a collaboration between the Institute of Archaeology and the Butrint Foundation (set up by Lord Rothschild and Lord Sainsbury of Preston Candover), the students will be introduced to Anglo-Saxon (as it is called in the Mediterranean) research and management practice. Meanwhile, the third-year students will go to East Anglia to take courses in the School of World Art Studies and Museology in archaeology, anthropology, art history and museology.
 
The Packard project promises to breathe new life into Albanian archaeology, creating a generation every bit as purposeful as the one established fifty years ago by Enver Hoxhe. The great difference, though, is that Tirana will in future possess the library and teaching resources sufficient for its archaeologists to work to modern standards.
 
It will be some years, of course, before the first fruits of this initiative are apparent. Nonetheless, there is every prospect that it will bring Albania’s archaeological past to life. Thanks to the Packard Humanities Institute and, in some ways, to the Kosovo crisis, Albania will be able to gain a new understanding of its roots and its identity.
 
Richard Hodges